Colour tattoo of two angular teal and orange swallows in a neo-traditional style running along the forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Two geometric swallows on a forearm

Neo-trad · Forearm · Colour · Photo

Two stylised swallows fly down the forearm, one above the other, built from angular facets and bold black outlines. The wings and tails are shaded in teal, green and orange, with black ink used for the shadows and an ink splatter near the top right. The composition follows the length of the arm, with the birds set against plain skin and a paper-covered surface.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Efa mixed the glaze for the kilns at Sarrow, and every spring two swallows came back to her roof from across the sea. The older one she called Tern-tail for its ragged feathers. The younger she called Sharp, because it flew straight at anything it wanted. Each autumn she painted their outlines on the cistern wall, then walked down to the harbour to watch the real birds leave.

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The year the ink-trader from Ketta came, he set his black jar on her bench while he haggled over clay. Sharp landed on the rim and knocked it over. The ink ran in a thick tongue across the wet glaze, then the jar cracked on the flagstones and threw a spray up the lintel and onto the trader's cloak. He shouted and waved his arms. Efa only laughed, because the stain had the shape of a bird's wing folded hard against the wind.

She cut the wings into planes with a bronze knife, working teal and green into each facet and leaving the orange for the tails, where the low sun would catch them. When the trader came back for his jar, she showed him the cistern wall. He counted the birds twice, then paid her in silver rather than argue.

That autumn the swallows did not leave. They sat on the black splash above the door and watched the harbour until the first frost, and Efa never painted them again.

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